Fired by these visions, I ran away from the insurance office in which my parents had placed me, when I was little more than sixteen, and applied for admission to the ranks of the famous Pinkerton Police. Although my youth was against me, my phenomenal command of languages turned the scale in my favour, and I was given a trial.
Very soon I had opportunities of distinguishing myself in more than one mission to Europe, on the track of absconding criminals; and in this way I earned the favourable notice of the heads of the detective police in London, Paris, Berlin, and other capitals.
At length, finding that I possessed unique qualifications for the work of an international secret agent, I decided to quit the Pinkerton service, and set up for myself, making my headquarters in Paris. From that day to this I have had no cause to repent of my audacity. I have been employed at one time or another by nearly every Government in the world, and my clients have included nearly every crowned head, from the late Queen Victoria to the Dowager Empress of China. I have been sent for on the same day by the Ambassadors of two hostile Powers, each of which desired to employ me against the other.
On one occasion I acted on behalf of a famous German Chancellor against his then master, and on another on behalf of the Emperor against his Chancellor; and neither had cause to complain of my fidelity. I have been instrumental in freeing a Queen renowned for her beauty from the persecution of a blackmailer set on by a foreign court; and I have more than once detected and defeated the plots of anarchists for the assassination of their rulers.
In this way it has come about that I enjoy the friendship and confidence of many illustrious personages, whose names would excite envy were I at liberty to mention them in these pages; and that few events of any magnitude happen in any part of the globe without my being in some measure concerned in them.
Often, when some great affair has been proceeding, I have felt myself as occupying the position of the stage manager, who looks on from the wings, directing the entrances and exits of the gorgeously dressed performers who engross the attention and applause of the ignorant spectators on the other side of the footlights.
The true story of the famous telegram which may be said to have rendered the South African War inevitable is one which strikingly illustrates the extent to which the public may be deceived about the most important transactions of contemporary history.
Every one is familiar with the situation created by that celebrated despatch. For some time previously all England, and, in fact, all Europe, had been agitated by the intelligence that Johannesburg was on the eve of insurrection, that the Boers were drawing their forces together about the doomed city, that Dr. Jameson had dashed across the frontier with five hundred followers in a mad attempt to come to the aid of the threatened Outlanders, and that his action had been formally disavowed by the British Government.
Close on the heels of these tidings came the memorable day on which London was cast into gloom by long streams of placards issuing from the newspaper offices bearing the dismal legend, ‘Jameson Beaten and a Prisoner!’